


Where the Fire Burns

by Prix



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Belonging, Best Friends, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Kylo Ren Redemption, Multi, Multiple Relationships, Other: See Story Notes, Politics, Porn With Plot, Rated for Later Chapter, Redemption, War, because I don't want to spoil stuff for later chapters, future background Finn/Rose/Poe or something like it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-05
Updated: 2018-02-05
Packaged: 2019-03-14 00:06:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13581828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Prix/pseuds/Prix
Summary: Everything they needturns to more, but the Resistance still is in desperate need of war resources after the devastating losses incurred before the destruction of The Supremacy. Rey looks for a place to belong in the effort to help hope rekindle in the galaxy. Meanwhile, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren faces trouble kindling in his own ranks.





	Where the Fire Burns

**Author's Note:**

> The exact chapter count on this may vary, but this is the most well-outlined chapter fic I've ever done. Hopefully, if there is interest it will go well! There is some content I will be warning for specifically in later chapter notes because I don't want to spoil those things in the tags, so if you find particular issues concerning for you, please bear in mind that you should check the chapter notes! 
> 
> I welcome feedback and interaction. Rey and Ben | Kylo are the main characters in this, but I promise Finn, Rose, and Poe aren't just tagged for brownie points or anything like that. 
> 
> The song I recommend for vibes but not direct soundtrack for this fic (this update, anyway) is "[Meet Me in the Woods](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzuDQR6JcGA)" by Lord Huron.

_Everything they need_ turns to more, much more quickly than could have been expected and only just in time. There are whispers now, everywhere they go, that piece together a story. Having been cut down to a group of people who could easily fit inside the Millennium Falcon, the Resistance grows each day by at least half that many. Of course, Rey counts those who carry the will to fight in their hearts, not simply those who can offer their military service.

By that accounting, the Resistance's growth is slower, but they have a new base now, and it bustles with activity and sound while a single sun shines and when it sets below the horizon.

Rey hopes. She listens, she learns, and she places her hands to work at jobs she has yet to learn to do. She keeps busy. She sits by Leia, when there is no choice but to rest. She shares her meals with her, sometimes.

At night — or whenever she happens to find time for sleep in this planet's rotation — she does her best not to think. Not to dream. She does not think of the base's location. She does not think of the footpaths she follows everyday, paved or covered in pale grass. She does not recall what she ate for her evening meal. She flits through memories of Leia's words that day — _doesn't she want to spend more time with people her own age? go, go..._ — lightly as she can, but she does not think.

 

"Good morning, Finn," Rey says, the morning after Leia's admonishment, bright and clear. Finn is surprised enough that a little droplet of what he had been drinking escapes the corner of his mouth. He quickly catches it, sets down his glass, and beams at her.

"Look at that," he says. Rey slips into the empty space on a bench beside Poe Dameron because Rose Tico occupies the space right beside Finn. "Rey said 'good morning' first."

"Finn," Rose complains with an air of quiet, mild authority. She lightly taps her foot on the floor beside him. She leans against one of her elbows, taking a finger-held bite of a grilled, green plant into her mouth and chewing for a moment. They have settled in enough that they even, many mornings, have cooked food for breakfast.

"She doesn't mind," Finn says, nodding toward Rey.

Rey shakes her head a little, helpfully.

"I don't," she agrees. She watches Rose for a little longer, a little more thoughtfully. She is still marked by signs of her own fight and accident. She glances at Finn. No, it was no _accident_. Rose bears the healing wounds as if they cause her no pain. There is almost always a little crescent of a smile on her face, anytime Rey has looked at her. Rose catches her eyes, and the little crescent shrinks away. "Really," she insists, averting her own eyes.

"Are you tired? Not sleeping well?" Rose asks. There is a momentary break in her questioning, and Rey takes a moment to consider how she will answer. Flat denial might seem troubling, and she doesn't want to lie. Disagreement would obviously be one.

"Rey used to—" Finn begins to explain, but when Rose looks up at him, she interrupts by looking back at Rey with a new burst of inspiration.

"Is it a Jedi thing?" she asks.

Rey's eyes lift to meet Rose's, a little languid but without true delay. She presses and rubs her lips together, finding that they are moist enough to allow her to speak again.

"I am not a true Jedi," Rey explains clearly. She punctuates it with a tight, reassuring smile.

"Hey, you're the best we've got to offer, and that makes you as good as the real thing," Poe says. He nudges her lightly in the side with his elbow. She smiles a little more genuinely because of the light tussling that feels natural to him, with him. She thinks why Leia must love him so, as she clearly does.

He must be like a son to her. _Like a son_. She looks over at Poe in profile. She holds her head so she can watch him discreetly for a few moments. She takes a few bites of some breakfast and patiently chews. She has tried to do what Leia suggests. On her last swallow, she downs some water. What Leia suggests is hard. She manages a smile as she stands from her place at the bench.

"Where are you going?" Finn asks, looking up and looking disappointed. Rey shrugs and nods over toward Poe. She turns to look him in the eye, still holding onto the smile.

"Perhaps I should go... practice, focus. Something," she explains. If the Force is nothing else, it is a path to find peace, quiet, and being alone.

 

Sleep claims her body quickly. First, she feels the aches and pains in her body that had been easily ignored during the day, all from keeping so busy. She feels herself sink into a small bed that she can call her own. She hears parts of her body pop softly as they settle and realign. Her eyelids grow heavy. She manages a squinting look up at the gray haze of a darkened room, the corrugated material that forms the ceiling above her. She closes her eyes. Then, she is lost.

_Lost to light._

_Lost even, perhaps, to the dark._

_Lost._

_Thoughtless and blank and still._ Nearly dead but breathing.

Then she is blinking her eyes open. At least, she feels that she is. She doesn't remember standing up, but she seems upright. She gets her bearings. She hears a sound like water dripping down onto itself.

"Rey?" a voice asks.

Her blood goes cold. For a moment, she cannot distinguish it from the water beyond her, drip, drip, dripping down. She feels at her own body for her blaster, her staff, and for a lightsaber. For anything. She finds nothing. Empty-handed, defenseless. She turns around, showing her teeth if she cannot produce anything else to threaten him with.

"What?" she asks, jaw tight and almost painful in its movement. "I'll show you nothing," she promises. This feels familiar now. He still hasn't asked for anything, but she is waiting for it.

"Rey," he says again.

Sometimes, she thinks that this is just a memory. It would be easier if it were, if she could be sure, but she has felt him in her mind, and she does not know how to get him out. She's tried.

"Go," she insists, but she does not back away from him. There is nowhere to go. She would try to determine where they are, if there was any escape, except that she thinks her mind might stray. She might give something away.

"Rey, I only wanted to see you," he says.

She looks down, finally, as if depriving him of her eyes is the only punishment that she can manage. Her hand clenches at her side.

"I'm not really here. And neither are you," she says, convincing herself. "This is a dream," she says, looking up to see his eyes for a second, thoughtlessly. 

"A dream?" he asks, and she hears again that little tinge of hope. She wonders if he will ever say anything here except simple, bare pleas or if he will ask anything but simple, bare questions.

"Yes, of course it is. I would have the control and power to stay away from here if—"

"You were awake," he finishes for her.

"Yes," she says, shaking her head a little. She feels cold. He shouldn't be able to do that, and yet he can. "... Are you?" she asks, staring down at the toes of his boots rather than anything else.

"Am I asleep?" he asks her to clarify.

She nods without looking up.

"I must be," he says. He lifts a gloved hand and looks at it. He flexes his fingers. She sees it all in her peripheral vision, or something like it. She might see it even with closed eyes, flitting about her own body like a bird.

"Why?" she asks, a harsher note in her voice.

"I've been asleep for so long," he says.

She hates it. Her teeth grind against themselves.

"Ben," she scolds. Then she catches herself. " _Kylo_ ," she spits, sharply looking up at him, "don't. You were fully aware. You were full capable of saving us, but you didn't."

"Us," he repeats.

"Stop it. How dare you?" she demands, louder still.

"I asked you to join me," he reminds her. As if she can forget.

"I'm fighting for _good_. I'm fighting to protect people. To help them. Not for myself," she says, each contrast intended to hurt. Then seem to press out beyond her, like her senses do in this place, making her dizzy and uncertain of her own form.

"Are you? Fighting," he points out. She wants to imagine he sounds cruelly amused. He doesn't but it seems like he should be from where he stands.

"Always," she insists.

"You must be," he says. "As I must be asleep. Always."

 

"Rey!" A familiar voice calls out, reaches down and in to draw her back. "Rey," it comes, low and gruff. Her shoulder shakes a bit beneath the pressure of a hand.

Rey should not be reluctant to awaken. She has never felt so safe as to sleep this deeply. She feels as if there is something flowing through her veins that draws her deeper into the dark.

_The dark_ .

Her eyes blink open. Her eyelashes feel a bit gummy. Her eyes sting when she tries to flutter them fast enough to clear her vision, to focus. Then, all at once, she settles back into her body with just a faint sense of being sweaty from head to toe. Not an unfamiliar feeling at all after spending most of her life on Jakku.

The room around her is dark. Light shines from the crack between the door and the hall. She isn't alone, and when she looks up at the man standing over her, she breathes a sigh of relief.

"Finn," she says with the same fond recognition they always give to each other. Then her brow is furrowing at him. Why is he here? "What is it?"

"I was hoping you could tell me," Finn says. She keeps frowning as he looks at her expectantly.

"I don't know what you mean," she says.

"I heard you talking in your sleep," he explains, a little leading, like he hopes it will prompt her to know exactly what he means.

"You heard me sleeping... here alone, in my room," Rey says, a little incredulous. Not offended, only incredulous.

"You screamed. Once." Finn stands straight and scratches at the back of his head.

As he backs away, Rey reaches down and braces herself. She draws her ankles toward herself, knees bending toward her chest as she sits up and into a compact ball. Her eyes dart back and forth, thoughtfully, searching the air in front of her for something. She finally focuses on Finn when she realizes that it is beyond her reach.

"Was it _about_ something?" she asks, her hands cupping around and then gripping her knees.

Finn raises his eyebrows and pockets a hand. He gives a half-shrug. He looks back and the door and returns his gaze to Rey.

"I wasn't trying to listen. I just heard. I was worried," he explains. He takes his own turn to look around, then finds a stool to pull over and sit on, beside her bed.

Rey looks down along the line of her arm, extended out to grip her own knees. Her hands work, quietly anxious.

"Aren't you tired?" she asks.

"Middle of the night here, but I'm up a lot anyway," Finn says.

It is Rey's turn to look surprised, skeptical. Her eyebrows lift up and she nods toward him, ever so slightly, a curious gesture.

"I'm trying to learn wherever I can. Help wherever I can. Poe does the same thing, and Rose acts like she's up to speed, but she got hurt pretty bad," Finn rattles off when he sees the look on her face. "I try to keep an eye on her."

"You've made friends," Rey remarks. She doesn't mean for it to sound envious. She only realizes that she must have said something strange when Finn's face takes on an expression she does not quite recognize. It holds her attention, her own gaze softening toward him. She waits for him to explain if she has done something wrong.

"They're your friends too," Finn says, a little searching, as if he has never thought to question this and is being asked to for the first time. His indecision bubbles uncomfortably in the pit of Rey's stomach, too. She searches his eyes, surprised he doesn't look away from her even while he looks at her with something she almost wishes were identifiable suspicion.

"I suppose," she says, inadequately, because she needs to say something to rise up to meet his disappointment, his uncertainty, at least.

"You've got doubts," Finn challenges softly.

"I'm asleep," Rey complains fondly, finally averting her gaze for a second to glance down, to smile with the ghost of some childlike mischief.

"But you know what you're saying," Finn says, clinging to the seriousness of his tone. He still looks expectant, waiting. 

"I suppose I... feel they don't know me," she says.

"Of course they do! I told Poe all about you. And Rose knows all about you whether I tell her or not," Finn says, his lips starting to turn upward in spite of what seems to be determination to control it.

"That's just it, Finn," Rey says softly, realizing that he has illuminated the very problem she has been having since she met Poe, since Rose was awake, since she finally found Finn. "They know what you tell them about me. They know what the stories told them about me. They don't know... me."

Finn lapses into thoughtful silence for a moment, watching her in a way that is a response in itself. When he finally does elect to speak, he tilts his head a little, watching her closely.

"Do I know you?" he asks.

Rey could answer him impulsively. She knows she could. There are almost equal parts of her that want to say _'How could you ask that?'_ and _'How could you?'_ and she doesn't like either side of it. She breathes, and she stops looking so deeply into the center of herself. She looks at his eyes and recalls the first time she saw them. She thinks of how much they went through, how quickly. She smiles, and it's sad but not without hope that she is right.

"I think so," she promises. She reaches up, combing her fingers through her hair.  She looks down, her eyes focusing very quickly, very sharply on the palm of Finn's hand. He has outstretched it to her, and she swallows tightly. She feels like she is being dishonest, and it washes over her. Her eyes dart for something, anything else, but she can only look at Finn's eyes, her own wide. 

Finn stifles a chuckle. He doesn't seem to see the profound guilt etched into her face. He sees something else in it, because he is looking right at her, and he smiles.

"Come on?" he suggests. "Let's go make some friends," he says wryly.

 

Poe stands up from kneeling before BB-8 with a pat to the top of its head. He holds in his hand a small device for carrying data which he slots into the larger holographic system at the center of the room.

"Here we go," he says. Leia goes to his size and watches his presentation attentively. She understands talk of tactics, talk of politics, and talk of resources completely. Rey watches them both, only to feel her eyes have become made of glass. Bits of the information filter into her mind, and she understands them, but what she notices more than anything else is how close Leia and Poe seem to each other. She wonders if—

"Rey?" Rose hisses to her from her side. Rey feels that her eyes are made of something human again when she looks over at Rose. These past several days, Finn has been making it a point to draw her into each conversation he can. He has told every story he knows to tell about her that wouldn't be a violation. He is pretty short on material. As well as she feels she knows him, they have not known each other for very long.

"What is it?" she asks.

"You looked a little dead-eyed, there," Rose explains.

"Oh? Did I?" Rey asks. When she smiles, sheepishly, it's genuine at least.

"I can explain some of what he's talking about if you need me to," Rose says, very lowly, a secret just for her. Rey cannot find it in herself to be insulted. She sees the kindness behind the offer.

"The planet has something the Resistance needs, right?" Rey supplies, checking her own understanding at least.

Rose nods quickly.

"And we're going to negotiate with them to get it," she continues.

"Yes," Rose says aloud.

"What else do I need to know?" Rey asks. There's a crooked, wry tilt to the soft smile she gives Rose. She almost immediately wonders if she has made another mistake with her.

"Well, it's just—" Rose cuts herself off. She leans forward a little at her waist and looks left and right until she spots Finn. Her eyes stay on him for a long moment while he is fairly oblivious to being watched. "... It's just the last time we tried to negotiate with someone, he pointed out to us that sometimes a deal's a deal, no matter who it's with."

Rey tilts her head forward, trying to see if she can find Rose's pupils, whether Rose looks back at her or not.

"And that's a bad thing?" she asks quietly.

Rose looks back at her so abruptly that it startles her. Again, she has the vaguest sense that when they look at her they must see something different. Someone different. Something tainted. But they all hardly know her, and Rose never knew her at all. She swallows hard.

"Very. Or at least it can be," Rose says with no room for true uncertainty.

"But... may not be?" Rey asks. She is looking toward the floor of the war room where she and Rose are standing to the side. There are many hushed conversations around the most important one, but suddenly her own voice rings in her ears. She looks up, around, everywhere but at Rose, but she seems him nowhere.

"It's only a good thing if we get to them first and stay on them," Rose says bitterly.

Rey feels little bumps rise on her arms at the fierceness in Rose's voice. Her eyes dart back and forth from Finn who now has his eyes on the projection Leia and Poe and others are discussing with gestures and nods and Rose. The set of her jaw seems like a soldier. Rey doesn't know exactly what she was before, but she knows what she has become.

Rey makes a sound that never makes it from her throat to her lips. She sucks in her breath to afford Leia silence when she speaks up, ready to address the room. She steals one more glance at Rose, but Rose has fallen into watching Leia with a countenance of cool, polished stone. Rey presses her lips together, squares her gaze, and tries to follow her lead.

"If you are in this room then know you have already been cleared for this mission," Leia says, making it abundantly clear that this is need-to-know, discreet, while also keeping hold of the trust and hearts of those who follow her. Rey feels herself pulled along while she sees the strings. She does not mind them. They are such fragile things, and she has always had so few. "It is your decision if you stay here, on this base, or travel in a single, shielded envoy to Sestrylara. Bear in mind that this is a mission to negotiate with a very frightened, very resource-rich world. If negotiation is not your strong suit..." She gives Poe a look, but it is with a crooked smirk that lasts for an instant. "... then perhaps you are most needed here. Poe?"

Poe steps forward. He is going on this mission, despite what had happened with their former fleet. This is a second chance for him, or a third, and Leia seems so glad to give it. Rey watches, but her eyes are cool and marbled again. She already knows she is going. There is no way out of the reach of the past — of what might have been, of what still reaches out tendrils to draw her back in — but forward.

 


End file.
